Idaho officials want to eliminate two wolf packs in a popular wilderness area

Should a state have the right to hire a professional to kill wolves in a federally designated wilderness area, to enhance the area's elk population for recreational hunters?

As we reported yesterday, some conservation groups think not, and are suing federal and Idaho state officials over Idaho's plan to track and kill wolves from two packs in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in central Idaho.

"Because it is wilderness does not mean that wildlife is exempt from management."

Tonight, in the first of a two-part series on the issues raised in the suit, News Director Sally Mauk talks with the chief of communications for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, Mike Keckler, about why Idaho last month, hired and sent a professional hunter into the Frank Church, to eliminate two of six wolf packs living in the Middle Fork of the Salmon river area of the wilderness. Keckler says wolves are taking a heavy toll on the resident elk population.

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Sally Mauk talks with Idaho Fish and Game spokesman Mike Keckler about the state's plan to eliminate two wolf packs in the Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness